How Many Clicks Does It Take To Get to the Explicit Center of YouTube?

By
Melissa Maypole on
02-12-2013

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There are plenty of kid-friendly videos on YouTube, but according to antivirus company Kaspersky, they’re still potentially dangerous for children—not because of their content, but because of their proximity to videos containing explicit content like nudity and violence.

The study reported by The Guardian offers a timely warning to parents; last tuesday was Safer Internet Day. The culprit appears to be YouTube’s “suggested videos” feature. In one example from the study, users who watched a Sesame Street video were just two clicks away from witnessing child birth. In another instance, users watching a Rastamouse cartoon found themselves a couple of clicks away from a video featuring violence and cursing.

Although YouTube does have a “safety” mode, Google acknowledges that there are flaws in the system that could put young users at risk.